Tale of the Tape: Bryce Love Vs. Jonathan Taylor

Bryce Love

Allegedly Bryce Love has a bad ankle. “Allegedly.” This ankle injury kept him out of a game at Oregon State and limited him against Washington State. “Allegedly” it hampered Love against Washington, a team ranked 4th in the country in stopping the run. So Love did what Love’s does when he’s playing and that’s smoke defenses. Love pranced throughout the Husky defense to the tune of 166 yards and three TD’s. Just another walk in the park on one good ankle for the FBS’ best rusher yardage wise.

While most players have at least 10 games under their belt, Love has nine and is still leading the country in total rushing yards with 1,622. That’s 180 rushing YPG, 19 better than the next closest guy in Arizona’s Khalil Tate. Love’s 15 TD’s are tied for 4th in FBS as well.

Why Bryce Love isn’t stealing away first place votes for the Heisman at the moment is that Stanford is 7-3. No running back has won the Heisman on a three-loss team since Ricky Williams won on an 8-3 Texas team in 1998. With only two games left on the schedule, Love will be lucky to crack the 2,000 yard mark, but he’ll need to do it. Williams had 2,124 yards and 27 TD’s highlighted by breaking the all-time college football career rushing record that season when he won the Heisman.

Per game, Love is Heisman worthy. As far as total statistics are concerned Love is still having a remarkable season but an extra contest in the PAC-12 Championship would seem necessary for the rest of the country to see Love one last time before casting ballots. For that to happen, Washington needs to beat Washington State in the Apple Cup and Stanford needs to take care of business against Cal. After Saturday, Stanford has a nationally televised game against out-of-conference Notre Dame. Another fantastic opportunity to get some more Love for the Stanford star.

Jonathan Taylor

“Who has Wisconsin played?” – haters hatin’.

Let me ask this question: What’s Wisconsin supposed to do?

What should the Badgers and stud freshman RB Jonathan Taylor supposed to do when they play Nebraska on a down year? How about rush for 249 yards and two TD’s.

What’s Taylor supposed to do against a poor Purdue team? Maybe rush for 219 yards and a TD.

What’s Taylor supposed to do when given the rock against Maryland and Indiana and Iowa (who just throttled Ohio St by the way)? Oh ya know, just average 155 rushing YPG against those P-5 teams.

Surely Wisconsin is not responsible for the quality of opponents within their own conference…unless of course they need to recruit for them too.

Wisconsin’s out-of-conference schedule was very soft, I’ll give you that; Utah St, FAU, and BYU are not exactly powerhouses. I feel like I’m getting redundant but what’s Taylor supposed to do? How about average 146 rushing YPG against out of conference foes.

It’s too easy to point to Wisconsin’s schedule and make excuses as to why they are where they are. But that’s just disrespectful and ignorant to how well they’ve been playing. Instead, appreciate that Wisconsin did what any good team with an incredible running back would do against inferior opponents and that’s stomp them out.

On the season Taylor is third in the country with 1,525 rushing yards and has 12 TD’s. Up next: Michigan (8-2) visits Wisconsin on Saturday in what looks to be a cold, wet mess. The Wolverines are allowing only 110 rushing YPG. So what’s Wisconsin supposed to do?